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TAW 2.x / Air Dominance Project Wishlist
The following are things that would be "nice to add" to Total Air War, but have not been modded yet. The purpose of this list is to generate ideas and brainstorming. This article has been separated into three sections. The first section lists changes that likely require TAW source code, EXE hex-editing, or a combination of hex-editing along with calling an external DLL (as was done with the TrackIR integration). The second secction lists changes that should be feasible to accomplish through manipulation of datafiles alone. The third section lists features that may require another program running in the background in order to implement (e.g. nvgtool.exe in TAW 2.0). Likely Requires EXE edits or Source Code Dynamic Campaign The following are recommended changes to the dynamic campaign engine and/or datafiles. Ground forces *Add ground forces and make the ground forces somewhat intelligent with route planning. **Figuring out the intended datastructure of gwar.txt might help with this. Limited Enemies *Assign a limited number of enemies so killing enemy fighters actually makes a difference instead of the current unlimited fighter swarms. Moving Map *Assign a single or custom palette (i.e. 1400pal.col) to the moving map. This would keep the moving map consistent through out times of day and altitude changes. **Would still need to toggle with NVG mode, or be permanently set to a custom nvgpal.col at night (with the first 2 rows having the regular daytime avionics colors). *Render the moving map in software mode while zoomed in (both Glide and D3D). This would also fix the D3D Moving Map rendering bug on recent video cards. *Barring the above, at least fixing the D3D Moving Map bug. Restoring ADF play modes *Reactivating the deactivated hooks for ARCADE and TOUR in TAW **ARCADE refers to the instant action mode in ADF **TOUR refers to the original scripted campaigns of ADF, which are currently in the "Single Missions" section of TAW 2.0 and TAW 2008 **Editing the main menu has already been tested, so reenabling the hooks should be all that is required. *Possible side effect: tweaking pilot files to incorporate additional data from above (though this may already be included in the dat files). Graphics Engine *Fix the occlusion bug in the graphics engine that causes objects to become visible through buildings and terrain (e.g. aircraft is visible even if it's behind a building or an entire airfield is visible from the other side of hill) *Fix the bug that causes the glare that normally occurs when POV faces the sun to become relative to the front of the aircraft when LANTIRN is enabled Glide Renderer *Implement a 1024x768 resolution Custom Weapon Loadouts *Allow for Custom and/or Selectable Loadouts in both Single Player (non-campaign and Multiplayer Co-op Missions. (This may be doable with a lot of wizardry in datafiles, but likely needs an EXE edit). Campaign Weapon Loadouts *Unlock the Expendable Decoy Drone on the campaign loadout screen so that it is directly selectable. The hook is already in the menu gadget files. **See the section on wep_load.gdd for more details. *Increase the number of preset campaign loadouts to incorporate loadouts that include expendable decoys. This may be possible with a hex-edit to an external DLL. Weapon Modelling *Increase the HARM's effective range to realistic equivalent Cannon Rate of Fire (ROF) The cannon currently employs a fairly slow rate of fire (ROF) and depletion time, which is adjusted for in higher difficulty levels by decreasing the cannon rounds by increments of 5 (without actually increasing volume of output). The ideal solution would be to increase the cannon's ROF to the actual 6000 rounds per minute of the M61A2 Vulcan cannon found on the F-22. However, a suitable solution would be to force the cannon's ROF to that rate when the simulation is in Time Compression mode (SHIFT+T), and reduce the ammunition counter in increments of 1. This will require less time on target for an appropriate kill shot (realistic), and also reduce the ammo depletion time to a more realistic rate. Reducing the consumption increment to 1 in Medium and Hard difficulties would decrease the difficulty of these settings, so the possible solution would be to reduce ammunition stores to 515 rounds (a realistic number). This is already doable in Hard by setting MORE_CANNON_ON_HARD=0 in game.cfg. Buddy Lase It would be nice if the Sim modeled a Buddy lasing type system. Also the ability for the Wingman to engage Static Buildings you have Designated from your F22.. Avionics TAW 2.0 has added some avionics hooks and screens to the f22.ins datafile. However, full functionality of the additional avionics likely requires EXE edits. Activation of Hydraulic and Electrical System displays The Electrical and Hydraulic systems are available for viewing on the Systems MFD with edits to the f22.ins file, but the displays do not update in the event of hydraulic or electrical casualties. Adding this functionality may require EXE edits. Towed Decoy The button for deploying the towed decoy is now available on the Defense MFD. Pressing the button provides a graphic of a towed decoy, but beyond this there is no functionality (enemy missiles continue to home in on the F-22). Adding this functionality (swapping in functionality of the launchable decoy drones that are implemented in TAW 2.0) likely requires an EXE edit, or a hex-edit to an external DLL file. Continuously Computed Impact Point (CCIP) Bombsight The CCIP bombsight is notorious for dropping freefall ordnance short of the target when in level or near-level flight. The current workaround is to dive-bomb the target to minimize long/short error, but hex-editing a fix would be ideal. Multiplayer Fixes and Enhancements These are features that stand to improve the multiplayer experience even more. Mid-Air Refuelling in MP *Currently, clients can communicate with the tanker, but only the host can take on fuel. *If cannot fix clients tanking, then it would be beneficial to have clients automatically refuel as the host takes on gas. AWACS Mode in MP *Allows one player to act as AWACS; takes player to AWACS screen in order to direct other multiplayer traffic *Likely more than just hex edits, this may well require source code to implement. Separating Sounds across Two Soundcards *Allowing a choice of soundcard for both speech that uses TrueSpeech (incl. radio speech and Betty), while other sounds (e.g. engine, cannon, explosions, landing gear) would continue to use the default soundcard. *This could allow voices to play in a headset while external noise comes out of regular speakers. *May be doable without EXE edits if we can intercept all sound from the TrueSpeech codec and reroute it to a selected soundcard. We could then create a separate application (selectable from the TAW 2.0 Main Menu) that would choose the soundcard for TrueSpeech). *Another possibility might be to find where the Speech, Betty, and Beeps soundbanks are addressed from within the EXE, and hex-edit to an external DLL or application that routes the sound to another soundcard. SRTM Elevation data in TAW *Add higher fidelity elevation/terrain data to the Red Sea AOR, as was done in certain versions of Falcon 4.0. *See this thread at SimHQ for more information. Can Probably be done with Data Edits thumb|300px|right|TAW Weather Proof of Concept In-Game Weather (both haze and thick cloud cover) (proper integration may require EXE edit) Weather as implemented in EF2000 should be doable in TAW (and even improved upon) through manipulation of altitude palettes and a couple of texture files. The palettes have already been done with a proof of concept, but they can be enhanced by substituting the original EF2000 cloud layers in the appropriate texture files. The trick then is to adjust the datafiles (likely the redxxxx.txt files) to expand the cloud cover to 100%, rather than the periodic cumulus clouds seen in TAW. Then it's merely a matter of matching the cloud layer with the palette transition altitude. The hardest part of this will be a clean integration with the TAW interface. There is a portion of each PDL file that says WEATHER FINE, and I can only assume that hooks exist in the EXE to allow for Good/Fair/Poor weather as in EF2000. Without an EXE edit, this could easily be selectable (or even randomly determined) prior to launching TAW, but the same weather pattern would be in effect throughout the TAW session. 3/3/2010 Update: Simply copying the EF2000 cloud textures will not work, and the cloud layers themselves are believed to be 3D objects (e.g. 3 files and ss files). The solution is likely in the ss file, which is to create a version that provides total cloud cover. Next, the TAW cloud layers use chroma keying to provide transparency within the cloud tiles. We need to determine the base color for the transparency channel, the color used for complete saturation (solid cloud color), and then modify the textures to show full (or very close to full) coverage using the appropriate colors. Once this is accomplished, it is as easy as applying two separate cloud layers to either side of the altitude transition band. Even more impressive would be to just use only one of the cloud texture files (e.g. TEX_49.tm) for the solid cloud layer, then modify another ss to use the cloud textures from TEX_45 and TEX_47. Then we could have a weather layer at low altitude, with stratocumulus clouds at high altitude. ADF/RSO Multiplayer Mission Edits While the missions from Air Dominance Fighter and Red Sea Operations have been converted to multiplayer, some work is still required for polishing and fine-tuning. Converting AWACS Missions to F-22 Multiplayer Missions A number of the missions in ADF/RSO Tours of Duty were AWACS based missions. Since AWACS is not currently compatible with multiplayer, these missions need to be converted to F-22 based missions. The missions that have not yet been converted are marked with an (A) next to the mission title in the Multiplayer mission selection menu. All of the F-22 flights are there; at a minimum the F-22 flights need to be player activated in the PDL files. The raw conversion is easy; the tough part is making sure the mission objectives present in the AWACS mission can be accomplished by the F-22s alone, and possibly re-balancing the missions and choosing the right F-22 flights for the players (i.e. some F-22 flights may have lighter workloads than others; these are probably not great candidates for player flights). Updating Mission Briefings for Converted AWACS Missions Since the missions are necessarily changed from the original AWACS missions, so then must the briefs change. This task is best accomplished after the converted mission has been tweaked and rebalanced. Ideal to the mission is to also include the Mission Objectives within the brief as well, since these objectives are not displayed automatically when selecting multiplayer missions. High Fidelity, Low Frequency WAV Files Would like to replace some of the current sounds with sounds that have lower frequencies for use with the Buttkicker Gamer, or for people who have high end sound systems and would like to feel the game. These sounds would ideally have a low frequency (LF) component of 80Hz or less in order to resonate even with low pass filters enabled. Sounds to replace/remaster: *Engine/Afterburner *Flyby noise *Explosions *Aircraft taking a hit *Vulcan Cannon *Landing Gear and Bomb Bay doors (a LF "clunk" at the end would be great here) *Bombs leaving ejector racks (i.e. the "Pickle" sound) *Landing and Taxiing noises (would aid in a poor man's force feedback) Updated 3D Objects ("3" Files) With what we know about 3 files, the things in this section are very doable. It's mostly a matter of finding the particular part of the 3D file that deals with texturing (or coloring) and making the appropriate changes. If anyone does add a request that fundamentally changes a 3D object, please describe exactly what you would like to do so its feasibility can be determined. Aswan Dam The large hydroelectric dam in Aswan, Egypt has a piece that extends from the dam structure to the hydroelectric plant. In the original TAW, this piece was textured with a sand dune, but with the new textures in TAW 2.0, this piece now looks like it is overgrown with vegetation. We need to determine what part of what file deals with the jutting piece, what texture it is using, and then replace it with a suitable flat sand texture. USAF F-22 Models The "Star and Bars" on the top of the wing should be aligned with the leading edge of the wing, as opposed to perpendicular (as it is now). Additionally, the orientation should be reversed (the top of the star should face forward). Note: in actuality, the star as was originally made did face forward, but was upside down on the side of the aircraft and backwards on the underside of the wing. The texture file was edited to reverse this in TAW 2.0 (after this screenshot was taken), and the easiest thing to do would be to reverse the orientation while aligning the texture with the leading edge of the wing. Gradient Colored Aircraft and Ground Vehicles Many of the aircraft and ground vehicles in TAW are not textured, but instead use a color gradient from the desert and vegetation color bands on the color palettes. In TAW 2.0, the color palettes (exception: night palettes) were adjusted to add a brighter sand color. This involved adjusting the gradient down and breaking from the gradient for the last four colors of the row (i.e. the high end of the gradient) to add colors that did not fit with the gradient itself. This produces an odd looking color scheme with the desert colored objects (the green patterns are unaffected). Finding the start and endpoints of the gradient (should be by color index number and range from 32 to 63) and chop the top four colors in the gradient (i.e. the new gradient should be 32 to 59). Aircraft that should be changed: *C-17 Ground Vehicles that should be changed: Can Probably be done with 3rd Party Utilities 'PARTIALLY IMPLEMENTED:' In-Game Music (inspired by BMS integration of WinAmp into Falcon 4.0 UFC) * Create a Visual basic external application for tracklists that can be accessed by Tawmenu.exe''' (implemented in TAW 2.10).' * Use "Dead" buttons in TAW datafiles to control track selection/play (likely requires Cheat Engine or Game Trainer Studio to intercept RAM) * Use of the Data display to display current track (may be possible with RAM hack, but may require EXE edit or hex-edit to external DLL). 'IMPLEMENTED:' Integrated Launcher for 3rd Party Utilities (e.g. VAC, Shoot, TrackIR). *This utility would automatically launch the selected applications upon loading of the TAW 2.0 Launch Menu '(implemented in TAW 2.10).''' Getting the Micro Air War dynamic campaign generator from ADF to work with TAW. Category:Gadget_Menu_Files#wep_load.gdd Category:Gadget_Menu_Files#wep_load.gdd Category:Gadget_Menu_Files#wep_load.gdd section on wep_load.gdd